Shall We Dance?: Movie, DVD Review

Directed by Peter Chelsom, written by Audrey Wells, 106 minutes, PG-13.

(Originally published 2004)

Peter Chelsom’s “Shall We Dance?,” a remake of Masayauki Suo’s 1996 Japanese romantic comedy of the same name, is essentially the same movie charged with an American sensibility. In this case, that means more drama, more gloss, less grace, less sophistication. It’s a small movie that’s been supersized.

Suo’s version featured a glum, middle-aged Tokyo salaryman finding happiness in the physical, emotional and spiritual release of ballroom dancing, which freed him so completely, he felt ashamed to share it with his family; after all, they weren’t responsible for his newfound high. He also chose to dance secretly because, in Japanese culture, one doesn’t exactly exalt openly in the cha-cha. Since no secret so rich can be contained in a movie whose point is to reveal it, complications ensued.

Chelsom’s version of the story follows suit, with Richard Gere as John Clark, a disenfranchised Chicago lawyer unhappy with life’s daily grind, unhappy that his wife, Beverly (Susan Sarandon), is too busy to spend time with him, and unhappy that middle age has essentially knocked him on his rear end.

John rides the subway to work. One evening, he sees from the train a beautiful young woman (Jennifer Lopez) standing above him in the window of Miss Mitzi’s Dance Studio. She’s a vision of poise and high cheek bones, so pretty, you’d swear she’d freshen the city air if she didn’t look quite as miserable as John feels.

Intrigued, John decides to visit the studio to learn who she is. What he finds there is threefold: The woman’s name is Paulina, she’s as cold as a Chicago winter, and his destiny, curiously enough, is to dance.

Indeed, it’s the tipsy Miss Mitzi (Anita Gillette) herself who sweeps John into the drama of ballroom dancing, which proves considerable when he meets his classmates--brassy Bobbie (Lisa Ann Walter), homophobic Chic (Bobby Cannavale) and husky Vern (Omar Benson Miller)--all of whom are there, you sense, to find themselves. When Beverly suspects that John’s long evenings at the office might be the result of an affair, she hires a detective (Nick Cannon) to find out more. As you might have guessed, complications ensue.

As directed by Chelsom from a script by Audrey Wells, “Shall We Dance?” is well-acted, crowdpleasing schmaltz with no surprises—the plot is a predictable, straight shot to the end.

That doesn’t mean it fails. Though it isn’t as rich as the original and the ending slumps into a sleigh of suburban whining, there’s plenty to like here, particularly from its secondary characters.

As Bobbie, Walter is wild, likable and loose, taking her inspiration from Bette Midler and Ethel Merman, and making their quirks her own. Gillette is sweet as Miss Mitzi and Stanley Tucci, as the high-strung, high-kicking Link, is uncontainable. Gere and Sarandon let the others to shine, as does Lopez, who does the unimaginable. She retreats into herself for three-quarters of the movie until the script eventually demands that she tart it up.

Grade: B